Newsletters 23-24
January 2024: Custom GPTs
As educators, we are constantly looking for innovative ways to enhance our teaching methods and engage our students. Custom GPTs, or Generative Pre-trained Transformers, offer a unique solution for this. By training the GPT specifically for educational purposes, we can tap into its vast capabilities to create personalized learning experiences.
Consider this custom GPT for example. It aims to be "The world’s most powerful math and science AI Tutor for middle and high school students." The company Flexi.org has customized the GPT in a way that allows it to interact with the user in a way that mimics a tutor and is especially useful for math or science. Right now, you need to have ChatGPT+ in order to interact with it, but you can also find a very similar version on the www.flexi.org website as well.
One of the key advantages of custom GPTs is the ability to generate high-quality content. Whether it's creating lesson plans, generating practice exercises, or even providing feedback on student work, custom GPTs can streamline these tasks and save us valuable time. Students can also benefit from the personalized feedback and tailored learning materials, helping to improve their overall learning outcomes.
Another benefit is the potential for increased student engagement. Custom GPTs can generate interactive and immersive content, such as virtual simulations or adaptive quizzes. These dynamic learning experiences can captivate students' attention and foster active participation in the learning process.
Furthermore, custom GPTs can assist in addressing students' individual needs and preferences. By analyzing their learning patterns and utilizing adaptive algorithms, the GPT can adapt its teaching approach accordingly. This level of personalization can significantly enhance the effectiveness of our teaching and ensure that each student receives the support they require.
Lastly, custom GPTs also have the potential to foster creativity and critical thinking. By providing students with open-ended prompts or challenging questions, the GPT can encourage them to think outside the box and develop their problem-solving skills. This can prove invaluable in preparing our students for the uncertainties and complexities of the future.
November/December 2023: Socrative, WordWall, and Book Creator
As the holiday season approaches, we are preparing for a well-deserved break. It's also an excellent time to explore and familiarize ourselves with some fantastic educational technology services that can make teaching and learning more engaging and efficient. In this holiday post, we will focus primarily on three ed tech services: Socrative, WordWall, and Book Creator. These tools offer educators a diverse range of capabilities to enhance their teaching methods and help students thrive in the digital age.
Socrative: Interactive Assessment and Feedback
Socrative is a versatile tool that empowers educators to create interactive quizzes, polls, and activities for their students. Whether you are teaching in-person or remotely, Socrative enables you to engage your students and gain valuable insights into their understanding of the subject matter.
Key features of Socrative include:
Real-time assessment: Teachers can assess students' progress in real-time, allowing for immediate feedback and adjustments to teaching strategies.
Customizable quizzes: Create and customize quizzes with various question types, including multiple choice, true/false, and short answer, to cater to diverse learning needs.
Student-paced activities: Socrative supports self-paced learning, enabling students to work through activities at their own speed while the teacher monitors their progress.
Data-driven insights: Analyze assessment results and track student performance over time to identify areas where additional support may be needed.
Socrative is an invaluable tool for formative assessment, fostering active student participation, and ensuring a deeper understanding of the material.
WordWall: Gamify Your Lessons
WordWall is an ed tech service designed to make learning more interactive and fun. With WordWall, educators can create engaging games and activities to reinforce learning and build a collaborative learning environment.
Notable features of WordWall include:
Game templates: Choose from a variety of game templates like word searches, flashcards, and quizzes to create exciting learning experiences.
Interactive content: Embed multimedia elements like images and videos into your activities to cater to different learning styles.
Real-time feedback: Monitor student progress and provide immediate feedback to keep learners motivated and on track.
Collaborative learning: Encourage peer-to-peer learning by enabling students to create and share their own WordWall activities.
WordWall adds an element of excitement to the classroom, making learning enjoyable and effective. It's an excellent tool for reinforcing vocabulary, math concepts, and various other subjects.
Book Creator: Empower Creativity and Storytelling
Book Creator is an exceptional digital platform that allows students to become authors and creators. With Book Creator, students can design and publish their digital books, fostering creativity, storytelling skills, and digital literacy.
Key features of Book Creator include:
Easy-to-use interface: Students and teachers can quickly create and customize their digital books with a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface.
Multimedia integration: Add text, images, audio, and video to enhance storytelling and create multimedia-rich books.
Collaboration: Collaborative projects enable students to work together on creating stories, reports, and presentations.
Publishing options: Share finished books online, export them as PDFs, or even print physical copies for a tangible keepsake.
Book Creator is a fantastic tool for promoting creativity, literacy, and digital skills while allowing students to express themselves in a digital format.
October 2023: Google Spaces
This month’s post will focus on a Google service that is built into Gmail. The feature is called Google Spaces. It can be found on the left-hand side of the screen when you are in your Gmail account.
Google Spaces is a new way to collaborate with colleagues. It is especially useful when working on a common goal or project. A space can be created by anyone in an organization, and anyone can be added to a space. Once created, chat, files, and tasks can be shared within the group. Chat works in the same way as Google Chat, however there is a setting that allows for in-thread replies. This is nice because it allows you to be clear about who you are responding to at any given time. For example, if you have ten people in a space, you might want to reply to what someone said a few chats ago, so this makes that clear and possible.
Specific files can be shared with those who are a part of the space. This allows for cleaner organization of files and allows the users to be more purposeful about what is shared and why. In addition to the files that can be shared, there are tasks. Google Tasks allow you to create goals or objectives, then include the people who need to accomplish the tasks. Like I said earlier, it is a great way to organize information for a project or common goal. Please find the video below for further explanation of Google Spaces.
September 2023: Lesson Planning and Mapping Out Tools
It is the start of a new school year, which means there are what seem like an infinite number of possibilities for structuring the school day. One area that is of my interest this year is lesson planning and mapping out. Thinking of the great tools that are online for email and calendar, I knew there must be some good options regarding lesson planning and mapping out as well. When it comes to lesson planning and mapping, teachers today have an array of online tools at their fingertips. Two leading platforms in this arena are Planbook and Common Curriculum. Both are designed to simplify the planning process, but they have distinct features and benefits that might make one more suitable for your needs than the other. In this post, we will compare and contrast these two platforms to help you make an informed decision.
Overview
A user-friendly tool that prioritizes simplicity in scheduling and creating lesson plans. It's designed to make the life of teachers more organized with a focus on collaboration and alignment with standards.
A flexible and customizable platform that offers different templates and intuitive drag-and-drop features, allowing for a tailored approach to lesson planning.
Features
Integration with Google Classroom.
Recurring lesson plans.
File attachments.
Collaboration with colleagues.
Drag-and-drop rearrangement of lesson plans.
Integration with Google Drive.
Sharing with students, parents, or colleagues.
Alignment with standards.
Benefits
Streamlines the planning process.
Creates a consistent structure for lessons.
Enhances team planning and alignment.
Offers customization to suit individual preferences.
Encourages transparency and engagement through sharing.
Provides flexibility to adapt to different teaching styles.
Pricing
Both platforms offer different pricing models to suit various budgets and needs. It's essential to explore these in detail, considering any discounts for bulk licensing or non-profit educational institutions.
Conclusion
While both Planbook and Common Curriculum provide robust solutions for lesson planning, they cater to slightly different needs and preferences. If you value simplicity and collaboration, Planbook may be the right choice. If you need more customization and flexibility, Common Curriculum might be more suitable.
Consider your unique needs, preferences, and the specific requirements of your teaching environment when making a decision. Both platforms offer free trials or demos, so take the time to explore and see which one resonates with your teaching style.